take shape

phrase

: to assume a definite or distinctive form : to develop and become apparent or established

The plan is finally taking shape.

Edison's tireless work habits took shape during his childhood …

—Paul Gray

The proto-planetary fragments crashed together, coalesced by gravity, and crashed again into other fragments, until they gradually took shape as the planets we know today.

—M. Mitchell Waldrop

… the first half of the century, before the modern medical system took shape.

—Geoffrey Cowley

Examples of take shape in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

If everything is completed accurately, a Direct Airport Release is possible, and the dog-friendly Hawaiian vacation of your dreams can finally take shape. — Rebecca R. Norris, USA Today, 29 July 2026

It is expected that FFE would need to be ratified by a majority of FIFA members, though there’s no word on when or how the vote will take shape. — Jesse Whittock, Deadline, 29 July 2026

Scavengers would dig up artifacts like gold coins and porcelain doll heads, and Bayouth admired their aged, archival qualities, a theme that takes shape in her ceramics. — Emily Tarinelli, Los Angeles Times, 29 July 2026

Strangely, the movement took shape not in France but in America, beginning in the late Sixties, just as existentialism, the last big French intellectual export, was fading from view. — Emily Eakin, Harpers Magazine, 28 July 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1560, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for take shape

• cityscape
• agape
• escape
• landscape
• lenape
• reshape
• seascape
• soundscape
• ape
• cape
• crape
• crepe